population growth in the world

According to media reports.

In 2037, the number is expected to reach 9 billion. Demographics say that by the year 2080, the world's population will reach 10.4 billion. Of course, this is in the event that the war currently raging between Ukraine and Russia does not develop in its next stages, drawing other nations and peoples into it, or turning, God forbid, into a nuclear war. Or the world will be exposed to another epidemiological ordeal, no less bad than the spread of the “Covid” viral epidemic.

Are these population statistics cause for joy or sadness? Who will be happy and sad? It is very likely that the English philosopher Thomas Malthus, if he were alive, would not be among the joyful. Presumably, even in his grave, he would fidget when it was announced. Thomas Malthus was an English philosopher, economist, and demographer, best known for his theory that population growth will always tend to outpace the food supply, and that the improvement of the human race is impossible without severe restrictions on reproduction. Mr. Malthus died in 1834, at that time, the world's population did not exceed one billion people only, and his death does not mean that his pessimistic school of thought has ended with him. There are thousands of his followers and followers who are still alive, and they will certainly not be pleased with the new population statistics, which will be announced in the next few days.

Sir David Attenborough, the British expert in ecology, who is, as they say, the most famous fire in the world, will not be among the happy ones either, because like other conservationists, he believes that population growth is harmful. Sir Attenborough, according to media reports, once said: "All our environmental problems are easier to solve when the population is smaller."

Western governments can fall into this category as well. It does not suffer from population growth, in fact the opposite is true. Western countries have a problem with the increase in the percentage of the elderly as a result of the availability of health care, and a decrease in the percentage of newborns, as a result of the reluctance of young generations to have children, due to the difficult economic conditions. The elderly is a term that denotes and refers to the category of retired people, of both sexes, whose numbers are increasing year after year, and burdening the budget of those countries with their pensions, the money spent on them in the field of health care, and the luxuries it provides for them. French President Emmanuel Macron, for example, wants to raise the retirement age, in an attempt to reduce pressure on the public budget, but he faces stiff opposition. The British government is also seeking to raise the retirement age, especially for women.

Poor countries may well join the category of the sad. It does not suffer from a decrease in human growth like the rich countries, and it does not have the economic resources or the financial capabilities to feed its people, and it depends on the aid that it receives from international organizations. When the Ukrainian-Russian war broke out, and grain shipments to many Arab and African countries stopped, voices were raised by international organizations warning of the possibility of famine in those countries. However, or rather despite it, the statistics will not be a source of sadness for all people and governments.

The fact that must be recognized and dealt with is that an increase in population growth necessarily leads to an increase in the demand for land resources, which are limited. And the solution?

The solutions, economists confidently say, lie in faith in technological progress and its enormous potential. They believe that an increase in population growth actually means an increase in human wealth, i.e. an increase in bright, creative human minds. Bright and creative minds, as they saved humanity in the past, from starvation and epidemics, will succeed in the future in creating advanced technical inventions that contribute to increasing land resources, and searching for new alternatives, as they did before, with their success in mechanizing agriculture, developing production methods and fertilizers, And bring about a quantum leap in agricultural and animal production.